The Role of the Mosaic Covenant

The role of the Mosaic covenant in Reformed
covenant theology has always been a difficult question. Members of the
Westminster Assembly, such as Edmund Calamy and Samuel Bolton, even disagreed
over how to classify the range of views among Reformed ministers. Michael
Brown’s study on Samuel Petto contributes to the scholarly exploration of this
question in the context of seventeenth-century Reformed orthodoxy. Brown is the
pastor of Christ United Reformed Church in Santee, California. He argues that Petto’s
view of the Mosaic covenant as a republication of the covenant of works was
designed to safeguard the gospel. Although this work is generally
well-researched, it lacks precision in discerning the range of
seventeenth-century views of the Mosaic covenant. This reviewer hopes to
clarify this subject by interacting with Brown’s treatment.

Petto was a Congregationalist and fifth Monarchist
(15-18). Brown’s chapters set forth in order Petto’s life and context, his
covenant theology in general, Reformed orthodox views of the Mosaic covenant,
Petto’s treatment of the Mosaic covenant, and the implications of his teaching
for the doctrine of justification. Brown’s title is well-chosen since Petto’s
primary contention was that Chris fulfilled all of the conditions of the
covenant of grace, making it entirely unconditional to believers. Petto
rejected the distinction between the covenant of grace and the covenant of
redemption and treated them as eternal and temporal aspects of the covenant of
grace (27-33). He believed that this secured the unconditional character of the
covenant of grace (111-115).

Petto’s view of the Mosaic covenant is the
centerpiece of his book on the covenants. This review will address Brown’s
historiography as well as the limitations of his assessment of Petto’s work.

The book is characterized by some
historiographical problems. Brown cites Richard Muller as arguing that the
Reformed orthodox were “the legitimate and faithful heirs of Calvin” (5). Yet
Muller notes, “Calvin’s theology is referenced, not as a norm to be invoked for
the examination of the later Reformed tradition, but as part of an antecedent
complex of earlier Reformed formulations lying in the background of many
aspects of the latter Reformed positions” (Richard A. Muller, “Diversity in the
Reformed Tradition,” Michael A.G. Haykin and Mark Jones, eds., Drawn into Controversie: Reformed
Theological Diversity and Debates Within Seventeenth Century Reformed Orthodoxy,
Gottingen, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecth, 2011, 12). Moreover, he defines Puritanism
almost exclusively in terms of ecclesiology and makes no mention of piety or
holiness a central theme (9). However, in spite of the ambiguity surrounding
the term, scholars almost universally recognize personal piety as a central
element of Puritanism.

In addition, he treats an “eschatological goal” in
the covenant of works as the standard Reformed position (36). However, he does
not recognize the significant diversity among the Reformed orthodox regarding
whether Adam’s reward was heavenly or earthly life (see Mark Herzer, “Adam’s
Reward: Heaven or Earth?,” Drawn into
Controversie, 162-182). Later he mentions Petto’s rejection of
“monocovenantalist schemas” (39). This imports contemporary debates into
historical theology. Brown gives no evidence that this terminology belonged to
the seventeenth-century nor does he indicate who held such views. The Reformed
orthodox would not have recognized this term in their debates.

At least two other items are worth noting. He
attributes Petto’s citation of “Dr. C” potentially to Edmund Calamy, but in the
context of Petto’s work, the reference is very likely to John Cameron’s book on
the covenants (13, fn13). The reason for this is that Petto’s on the Mosaic
covenant were most likely a variation of Cameron’s assertion that the Mosaic
covenant was a “subservient” covenant that was neither the covenant of works
nor the covenant of grace. Additionally, he mentions that Petto’s rejection of a
distinct covenant of redemption fits better with the Westminster Confession than with the Savoy Declaration (30). However, even Savoy does not use the term “covenant
of redemption.” It refers only to a covenant between the Father and the Son
(Savoy 8.1). Petto’s position still fits this language just as easily as those
who distinguished the covenants of redemption and of grace. Conversely, though
the terms describing the covenant of redemption were new at the time of the
Westminster Assembly, there is no tension between this idea and Westminster’s
covenant theology.

This lack of precision with respect to the
relevant issues in seventeenth-century Reformed orthodoxy affects Brown’s
treatment of the Mosaic covenant. While he succeeds in establishing the general
thesis of his book, the manner in which he describes Petto’s view of the Mosaic
covenant in relation to the options available at the time is problematic.

To begin with, he notes that Petto “embraced both
the old and new covenants, and qualified them as one covenant of grace . . .”
(42). Yet this is directly opposed to Petto’s argument in chapters six and seven
of his work. Petto argued that the “old covenant” was not the covenant of
grace, but that it was the “legal condition” of the covenant of grace as it was
the covenant of works published for Christ to fulfill (Samuel Petto, The Difference Between the Old and New
Covenant, London, 1674, 112, 124, 127, 141, 186). Petto taught that the Old Testament saints were saved through
the “one covenant of grace,” but he denied emphatically that the oldcovenant
was an administration of the covenant of grace.

Brown’s treatment of John Owen is important, since
Owen and Petto held similar views and Owen wrote a preface to Petto’s work.
Brown asserts, “[Owen] saw it as a covenant of works, distinct from yet
subservient to the covenant of grace” (44). He later distinguishes Owen’s view
from Bolton (and Cameron), who regarded the Mosaic covenant as neither the
covenant of works nor the covenant of grace (79). However, Mark Jones has
demonstrated that Owen’s position has many commonalities with Cameron’s, even
though he illustrates the nuanced differences between them (Jones, “The ‘Old’
Covenant,” Drawn into Controversie,
199-202). Even though Owen believed that the substance of the covenant of works
was republished at Sinai, he explicitly called Sinai “a superadded covenant”
that was essentially neither the covenant of works nor the covenant of grace
(Owen, Works, XXIII, 70, 77-78. Goold
edition. See Petto, The Difference,
162). This is probably the most serious criticism of Brown’s work, since it
shifts the entire paradigm of understanding Owen and Petto’s covenant theology.

Regarding Petto’s view of the Mosaic covenant,
Brown wrote, “Petto believed Sinai to be a republication of the covenant of
works” (87). This statement is not very precise. Petto wrote, “In general it
was a covenant of works to be fulfilled by Jesus Christ, but not so as to
Israel” (Petto, The Difference, 112).
His point is that at Sinai, the covenant of works was republished to Israel declaratively
rather than convenantally (Jones, “The ‘Old’ Covenant,” 200). In other words, it
was not the covenant of works as originally given to Adam, but it was the
covenant of works as given to Christ as the second Adam (Petto, The Difference, 17). This is why Owen
argued that Sinai contained the substance
of the covenant of works without being the covenant of works stated simply.
Brown has not adequately discerned the nuances of this position, which is
admittedly subtle. He qualifies these statements later by noting that the law
was not a covenant of works for Israel (95-96, 103), but the bald statement
that the law was a republished covenant of works was one that neither Petto nor
Owen was willing to make.

On a minor note, he misunderstands slightly
Petto’s view on “conditional promises (41, 111-115). Petto believed that the
gospel consists of unconditional promises to believers and that those promises
which appeared to be conditional were merely rhetorical devices that were
designed to incite faith (Petto, The
Difference Between the Old and New Covenant, 312ff). Brown does not bring
out Petto’s emphasis strongly enough. When Petto calls faith, repentance, and
obedience conditions “improperly” speaking, he means that they are inappropriately
called conditions, since they are merely duties within the covenant of grace (The Difference, 208).

The proper construction of Petto’s covenant
theology is as follows: The Sinai covenant was not the covenant of works as God
gave it to Adam. Neither was it an administration of the covenant of grace to
Israel. Nor was it a mixed covenant that was partly a covenant of works and
partly a covenant of grace. Instead, it was a covenant of works for Christ in
fulfilling the “legal condition” of the covenant of grace. As such, it was “an
addition or appendix to that with Abraham” (Petto, The Difference, 162). Israel had no relation either to the covenant
of works or to the covenant of grace by virtue of the Mosaic covenant. This
covenant brought them temporal blessings in the land of Canaan only (as Brown
notices, 96). Brown gives the impression that Petto taught that the Mosaic
covenant was not an administration of the covenant of grace, but that it was a
republication of the covenant of works. Yet strictly speaking, he believed that
it was neither.

Seventeenth-century debates over the Mosaic
covenant differ widely from modern ones. Some believed that he Mosaic covenant
was the covenant of grace. Most believed that it was the covenant of grace with
a republication of the covenant of works as a subordinate element. A small
number taught that it was neither the covenant of works nor the covenant of
grace, but that it contained elements of them both. Few, if any, believed that
the Mosaic covenant was merely the covenant of works. Brown’s work draws
necessary attention to a virtually forgotten thinker in the
seventeenth-century, but the conclusions of this work need to be sharpened in
order to better contribute to contemporary discussions.

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This review appeared first in the Mid-America Journal of Theology for 2012.